This invention relates to improvements in tire building drums, particularly to a tire building drum for building passenger car tires and the like.
Broadly, the invention comprises a tire building drum having a solidly supported axially and circumferentially continuous cylindrical building surface in each of two diametral conditions, the drum comprising means providing radial expansion including a single circumferential set of segments each having an axially spaced pair of radially inward extending legs and a T-section key extending from one to the other axial end thereof; means providing axial length adjustment of said building surface including a circumferential set of axially opposed pairs of segments abutting at the mid-circumferential plane of the first said set disposed in slidable interfitting relation with and slidable axially oppositely along said T-section key, each segment of said pairs having a radially inward extending portion, said portions being respectively axially outward of and adjacent the legs of said single set of segments, an axially opposed pair of hub members movable coaxially outward relatively of said single set of segments, each said hub member having radially extending guide means slidably retaining the respectively associated portions of said opposed pairs of segments.
To acquaint persons skilled in the arts most closely related to the present invention, certain preferred embodiments thereof illustrating a best mode now contemplated for putting the invention into practice are described herein by and with reference to the annexed drawings forming a part of the specification. The embodiments shown and described herein are illustrative and as will become apparent to those skilled in these arts can be modified in numerous ways within the spirit and scope of the invention defined in the claims hereof.